AND THE VIRGIN MARY SMILED

This is a true story. If it gets too long for the reader, please skip to the last few sentences and understand why I put it under the Philosophy site.

AND THE VIRGIN MARY SMILED

"They're getting closer!" William screamed. I threw a glance over my shoulder at the mob's torches, and heard the taunting drunken shouts of "Gringa" grow louder. The glint of machetes and distorted faces of our pursuers pumped a fresh supply of adrenaline through my body as we fled through an unknown village high in the Peruvian Andes. Was it only an hour ago that we had been eating, drinking and singing with these men that now chased us? I was the only female in this ugly slice of true life All traces of humanity had disappeared from our tormentors as they had congealed into a pack of predators. One man had failed to join them. This stranger had quietly taken me aside, slipped a key in my hand, and described a white building, near the top of a hill. His kind eyes communicated a sense of urgency and he spoke in an unfamilar language. My Spanish was limited to one class in the sixth grade. My two companions and I, slipped out a backdoor, running into the darkness and searched frantically for a refuge we weren't sure existed. I thought of my sixth grade Spanish teacher and how we had laughed at the way her arms jiggled like jello when she wrote on the blackboard. So odd what comes to mind when death seems imminent.

"I think I see it!" George shouted. The mud thatched hovels had given way to a bare stretch followed by strange formations of jungle and human debris. Beyond this stood a white box shaped building. An enraged howl broke behind us as I fumbled with the ancient padlock, hands trembling and slippery with sweat. Then in one blessed movement, the lock opened, we threw ourselves in, closed and began barricading the door with whatever we could find. We appeared to be inside some type of storage building. The machetes began hacking at the wooden door and the taunts and threats from the Beast outside required no translation. Would they try to burn us out? How had I come to this?

What was I doing in Peru? My first day in Lima, I'd gazed out my hotel window from the sixth floor at a landscape dominated by a statue of the Virgin Mary . Oh so beautiful, she stood taller than our hotel and was holding a bowl in her lovely hands, smiling as she seemed to offer the world heavenly sustenance. As I watched, a dark cloud emerged from the bowl as hundreds of vultures flew out of it. Then the building began to sway. A primal rumbling from deep within the earth's core mixed with human screams. Angry cracks appeared in the walls as plaster fell on my yet unopened suitcase. Humidity spiced with fear perfumed the fetid atmosphere. In the eerie quiet following the earthquake, the vultures returned to the bowl. The Virgin still smiled.

Had that only been three days ago? I was brought back to the present by the sound of a torrential storm suddenly blasting our sanctuary. The rains seemed to quench not only their tourchs, but also whatever evil fire had ignited that mob. The machetes quit hacking at the door. Broken men stumbled home to grinding poverty and whatever other demons or angels awaited them.

In the morning we made our way through the mud and human waste that served as streets. A rusted old bus came by and we got on, not caring so much where we were going, but only that we were leaving whatever level of Dante's hell we'd stumbled into.

We traveled through Peru for another three weeks. I met good people and saw beautiful things, but the intensity level never receeded. Two earthquakes, a landslide, gorilla warfare, a military coup, cocaine smuggling. starvation. Normal everyday stuff. During our last week, we stayed in an exclusive European-style Hotel. I viewed it as a very nice hospital where I was recovering from Culture Shock.

Are we all just a couple of wrong turns from disaster? Can an act of kindness save our humanity? Is the Virgin Mary still smiling?..............Hiyath